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tv   Closing Bell  CNBC  October 24, 2012 3:00pm-4:00pm EDT

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pumpkin. >> very nice. >> looks delicious. >> there is no new bacon. bacon is bacon. >> yes, bacon really is bacon. >> thanks for watching "street signs," everybody. >> "closing bell" is next. hi, everybody. we enter the final stretch. welcome to the "closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo. no new insight from the federal reserve. wall street reacting with stocks posting just modest moves as we approach the final stretch. >> i'm bill griffeth. the dow has given back nearly 2% since the beginning of the week. today we didn't exactly get the snap back rally the bulls might have hoped for after that huge selloff we saw yesterday. >> financials among the losers in the past three trading sessions. the xlf index down better than 1%. coming up, we'll hear from two leading voices about their view on the industry. don't miss barney frank and
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meredith whitney coming up on the "closing bell." the dow jones industrial average right now flat on the session. a lot of movement but not much change from where we began, actually. nasdaq composite looks like this. once again seeing selling there as you see the nasdaq down just a fraction. really steady today. the s&p 500, similar chart pattern with a flat showing there as well. no surprise from the latest announcement from the federal reserve. leaving interest rates unchanged saying the economy is limping along but going in the right direction. the fed pretty much took a breather after last month's big policy moves. >> as anticipated. but will the fed make any bold moves after the election? they have a meeting coming up in december. we have our team of experts with their reaction looking ahead as well. joining us from the buttonwood
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gathering here in new york. gentlemen, good to see you all. greg, i guess no surprise, but how much of this is, you know, leaving things almost precisely as what they said and did in september? how much of that is their view of the economy, and how much of it is they want to stay out of the way, two weeks away from the election? >> i don't think this has to do with the election. i think it more has to do with the first part of what you said, that they haven't seen much change to their fundamental view. i want to point out two things that did not change that i think were noteworthy. they still describe the unemployment situation as elevated in spite of that surprise drop below 8% we saw last month. they also said inflation expectations are stable in spite of the fact that since their big announcement last month in the bond market expectations have risen. that's important because it tells me they have not seen anything in the improvement in the labor market or the rise in inflation expectations that would deter them from doing more. all eyes are on the december
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meeting where we're going see whether they're going to expand quantitative easing. i think that this statement tells us they probably will. >> brian, what's your take? did you hear anything that would dictate a different strategy in terms of trading this market? >> no, i agree that i think really the consensus is that in december we'll have to have more clarity on what's going to happen with qe-3, more continuation of some of the programs they have. operation twist right now selling short-end securities, buying long treasuries will expire at the end of december. the fed should give us clarity on whether they're going to be purchasing more assets or purchasing assets elsewhere come december. >> and michael, you've made no secret of the fact you disagree with fed policy right now. you know, they're sticking with their policy of keeping rates low for the foreseeable future. what's wrong with that? >> first of all, it's a fictitious economy. i'd like to have a real economy.
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i'm glad the fed finally acknowledged the inflation they created. i think what's going to bail them out now is the fiscal cliff. i think we go over the cliff and find resolution in january. then once congress and the white house finally come together and find a way to keep borrowing and spending and printed iing, we'r going to have a huge rush into risk assets. >> so it sounds like you want to be putting money to work here in this market. >> i do. i do. i want to be buying on the dips. i want to be buying risk assets on the dips. absolutely. >> greg, what now? i mean, is there anything left the fed can do at this point? we talk about how much is left in their arsenal to try and ward off. do you think they're going to step aside and hope the congress can do something with fiscal policy, or are there other initiatives you can see them doing down the road? >> i think that they throw their hands up in despair when they
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look at congress and the fiscal situation, as we all do. they've done a lot already, yeah. i think there is more they could do. first of all, they're going $40 billion a month of mortgage-backed securities. they could increase that amount. they almost certainly will in my view when operation twist rolls off. there's also a debate within the fed right now about whether they should set an explicit objective for the unemployment rate. instead of saying we want a big drop, do they put a number on it? i think there's a lot of sympathy for that in the fed. a lot of people don't like this idea we're going to keep rates at zero come what may. i think those are two things to keep an eye on to see whether anything develops on that front at the december 11th and 12th meeting. >> i want to ask greg a quick question. isn't the fed running out of short-term securities and any extension of operation twist would just be another $45 billion in addition to the $40 billion in msb and treasury purchases? >> so they are indeed running out of short-term securities. i think there's a case to be made that they might actually start to sell some of their
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three and four, five-year maturity securities as well. the real juice will not come from swapping one type of bond for another. it will come from pure quantitative easing. >> $85 billion per month in addition to the fed's balance sheet, correct? >> and brian, you said -- >> that is right. >> brian, you say the key question here is whether they can continue with the low inflation expectations out there. >> well, the key is, you know, we'll don't run $1 trillion deficits every year and keep rates low in the long end. right now the treasury -- excuse me, the fed is buying something that equals about 90% of the supply in the long end issuance. so they're buying a tremendous amount of this outstanding supply of bonds, and we still see bonds slightly below 3%. will rates go much higher if the fed stepped out of the way and stopped buying long-term treasuries? you'd have to assume we'd see a high-rate environment. we're running trillion dollar deficits every year.
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how long can we sustain low rates in that kind of environment? >> absolutely. good point. thanks, gentlemen. appreciate your time tonight. see you soon. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> the fed not really doing much, not saying much either at this point. >> yeah, more reaction now, though, from somebody who's been there. former fed vice chair allen blinder, now a professor at princeton university. i know you're -- you like what the fed has done with the qe-3 and so forth. any surprising from this announcement today? >> no, i don't think there are any surprises at all. i think this is what most everybody was expecting because of what greg said before. they did a lot. the fireworks went off at the last meeting. there was really nothing for them to do at this meeting except they are having some discussions about some of these issues such as a consensus forecast instead of having 19 different forecasts. but that's all internal. >> what's your take on the fiscal cliff implications?
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>> i think the betting odds are still, though not quite as prohibitive as they were, that we'll avoid the fiscal cliff. there are enough people in washington that realize that this would be disastrous. i think in the end, cooler heads will prevail. what i mean by that is not that they get a grand bargain, just that they kick the can down the road so the new president or the same president in his second term and the new congress can deal with it. >> okay. so you think if they come to an agreement sometime in january then that's okay, even though we finish the year out with no agreement? you still think it's not going to -- >> no, no. you need something before that, maria, to kick the can down the road so nothing terrible happens on january 2nd. >> so you think that the agreement comes after the election? >> oh, definitely after the election. probably way after the election. >> sometime in december? >> i would guess like it's new year's eve day. >> what about -- >> wow.
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>> a newspaper in iowa released a transcript today of a backgrounder that the president gave that newspaper where he said it's likely they'll get some sort of stopgap measure in december and then work on a grand bargain in the first six months of the new year. what would that do to the economy, do you think, or the markets? >> i think it's kind of neutral. i think that's very close to what the markets are expecting. that the politicians will find a way to wriggle out of the sequester and the bush tax cuts and all of that stuff that makes the fiscal cliff. then be working on the grand bargain. now, how likely it is to get that grand bargain and say, as you just said the first six months of the year, is going to depend on the election result. nobody knows that at this point. >> sure. all right. good to see you. thanks so much. >> thanks. >> we're in the final stretch of trading for the day. a market that is fractionally lower at this hour. >> can't which way it wants to
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go. don't go anywhere. we have a huge show still ahead. this jam-packed edition of the "closing bell." watch. coming up, a frank discussion. the co-author of dodd frank defending one of wall street's biggest banks. really. get what's behind the big bank turn around. he's here live. plus, prescription for profits. eli lilly ceo talks about profits and a game changer in the fight to cure alzheimer's disease. and withdrawing interest? warren buffett may believe in at least one big bank. >> in the last week, i bought some wells fargo. >> but what does financial sector google think?
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welcome back. one of the biggest critics of the banks coming to the defense of jpmorgan. barney frank calling out the new york attorney general for filing a lawsuit against jpmorgan over
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alleged misconduct of bear sterns, a firm jpmorgan acquired back in 2008. here's what jamie dimon had to say about this lawsuit. >> we were asked to buy bear sterns. someone said the fed did us a favor. no, no. we did them a favor. had they gone bankrupt, there would be no lawsuits. i'm going to say we lost $5 billion to $10 billion in the bear sterns deal, and i would put it in the unfair category. >> the congressman joins us now. a rare instance where you and jamie dimon agree on something. >> no, we've agreed on some things. there have been some areas of agreement. >> but he's a big boy. i mean, your feeling is if the government is in their coercing an acquisition like the bear sterns acquisition that they
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should not be held liable for whatever may have occurred before the acquisition. don't you think jamie dimon realizes that when he makes a deal? he assumes the obligations and legacy issue come with acquiring bear sterns. >> first of all, i think it would have been reasonable for him not to assume it. you stated it a little more correctly than mr. dimon did. he said he was asked to take it. he was more than asked. he was heavily pressured to take it. let me look at this from the standpoint of a federal policymaker, which i will be for another couple months. it's not a matter of being nice or not nice to him. he's a big boy. but the question is this. do we want, in the federal government, the capacity for the top regulators, the top officials in the bush administration, secretary pahlsson, fed chairman bernanke with the support of president bush, go to a bank and say, we would like you to take over this institution to help the economy, to avoid the problems we later ran into when nobody was able to
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do that. in addition to whatever else happens, you're going to be held liable for whatever junk they did before. that makes it less likely we could do it again. i worry about injuring our own capacity to do this kind of thing in the future if it's in the national economic interest. >> congressman, i think you make a great point. i want to get your reaction to what the new york state attorney general said. he's basically saying, look, he stands behind this jpmorgan lawsuit. listen to this. >> when you buy a firm, you get the assets and you get the liabilities. you can't, as a prosecutor, allow this conduct to go unfiniunfi unpunished and send the message there's one set of rules for a group of people and another set of rules for others. >> i disagree. we have one set of rules for people who break the law and a set of rules for people who don't.
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we should have a separate set of rules for those who decide on their own to make an acquisition and those who respond to urgings of the federal government to listen to them. >> so who do you go after? >> well, let me finish the sentence. >> i'm sorry. >> then i'll take the next one. when you're being interviewed by two people, it's hard to deal with them both at once. the point is mr. schneider man is right. that's why i say i worry about the future. i don't want to set the precedent that when we go to somebody in the future when the president and his top economic people go to somebody and say, would you help us out, they say, uh-uh, that's a boobie trap. when you do this in response to the federal government, you're not responsible for the mistakes made for the before people. you go after the people at bear
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sterns. presumably, they believe people at bear sterns did it things wrong. in fact, there's be too little responsibility for individuals. going after the shareholders, the money of jpmorgan chase, that doesn't deter anybody. that penalizes innocent people. not hugely. what they should be doing is saying, all right, what individuals at bear stearns did things wrong? if there weren't assets at the firm, some of these people have private assets. >> what about bank of america? u.s. attorney in manhattan filing a civil lawsuit. based on your press release earlier this week, this is not a case you would argument against. >> not on the same principle. at this point, i would say i don't know enough about the specifics. let me make this distinction. bank of america did take over merrill lynch under federal pressure. they looked at it and were going to back away. the federal government said no.
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people should remember the context. this is 2008. the bush administration is desperately trying to stave off economic collapse. the validation of this whole operation is the meltdown we had when lehman brothers was allowed to fail. no one would do for lehman what bank of america did for merrill lynch and what jpmorgan-chase did forbear stearns. with regard to country wide, that was an acquisition which mr. lewis, the former ceo of -- >> right, the chairman. >> there's been a great improvement in the current ceo. i don't have the same principle. on the other hand, there were specific arguments there. have they already compensated fannie may and freddie mac? there are already specific issues there. i do say that the principle i've tried to put forward, that you do not penalize the financial
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institution if they responded to heavy federal pressure to bail out another institution for the previous failings of that institution. in the case of a voluntary acquisition, that's a case-by-case on the merits. fortunately, i'm leaving this job in two months. i'll no longer have to look at the merits of all these cases. >> are you going to try to get a job on wall street? >> no, i do not want a job on wall street. as a matter of fact, i am singing an anti-war song in my head that i have modified. ain't going to study derivatives no more. >> we are certainly going to miss you in that regard. let me ask you, though, more on the country wide. does that mean you wouldn't go after some of the individuals who ran country wide? you would keep it on the -- >> no, no. they definitely should. the principle going after individuals holds. with regard to merrill lynch, there are cases that could be brought against individuals. as i recall, there was a settlement. i think, frankly, they didn't
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get enough. in that case, there was pretty widespread abuse. but i don't know the facts. you know, it's easy to be critical. one of the things i have to say to some of if i fellow liberals, we've always talked a lot about the importance of due process, particularly where criminal actions are concerned. people should be held criminali what they did could be held liable. a lot of the things that shouldn't have happened unfortunately weren't clearly illegal. that's part of the reason there haven't been more prosecutions. there was way too much uncertainty and ambiguity. >> dodd frank of course continues to get implemented. congressman, how come only, what, a quarter of the rules have been implemented so far in terms of dodd frank? and what do you think about this whole debate over dodd frank? if governor romney gets elected, he says he's going to make changes and repeal aspects of
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the law. how do you see this playing out? >> he's not going to be able to repeal it because the republicans have voted many, many times in the house and haven't voted to repeal any aspect of the reform bill. it's popular with the public. it's the most popular thing we've done. what mr. romney would do if he got elected, which i do not expect, but if he were to be elected, he would appoint people who wouldn't operate it, who wouldn't use the rules. we'd go back to where we were before. we didn't have enough regulations, but we had some. we had regulators who wouldn't use. that's what would happen. as to the implementation, first of all, i'm happy with it. these are complicated things. look, one of the biggest problems we have, the biggest change i would have made if i had a magic wand, i would emerge the commodity exchange commission. it shouldn't overlap. one from the agriculture
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community, one from the financial. i'm very glad we were able to work it out. there are ten commissioners. you got to get six of the ten. the other problem is we did not anticipate the republicans taking over the house and failing to provide the funding to the sec and particularly to the commodity futures trading commission. we complain that they didn't do enough about mf, and i agree, but they can't do that with no people. >> you're right. they really need resources over there at the sec. particularly with dodd frank. congressman, appreciate your time. >> we're going to miss you. >> barney frank joining us. >> nobody like him. nobody like barney in congress. heading toward the close. about 25 minutes left in the session. the dow starting to move lower again. down 33 points. >> we have a guest coming up on this program that thinks facebook has bottomed. meanwhi meanwhile, the stock on the upside today. going mobile, shares a surging today. is facebook a better bet to
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monetize mobility than google? the trade coming up. also, dan niles won big by betting against the stock. but now guess what he's doing. >> he's changing his tune. >> buying the stock. he's here to explain why. stay tuned.
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facebook having its best day since the ipo back in may. jackie deangelis tracking the move. >> good afternoon. it's also the strongest day,
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heaviest volume for the stock we've seen since its ipo. over 200 million shares traded today. of course the company reporting strong third quarter revenue yesterday and progress on making money from the mobile ads. 14% of its advertising in the period came from mobile devices. upgraded today to a buy from citi. bill. >> all right, jackie. thank you very much. let's talk about facebook and this big number and the big gain today, up 18% after big earnings report. let's compare it to google. both of them scrambling in this mobile advertising space. on the technical side, it's mark newton, chief technical analyst with grey wolf execution partners. lou, did the market underestimate facebook's ability to turns things around?
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>> i think they continue to dramatically underestimate facebook's potential. they averaged about $1.5 million a day after virtually nothing in the previous quarter. they finished the quarter at $3 million a day in mobile advertise. they're primed to do more than $350 million in the fourth quarter. >> okay. mark, i mean, even i know on a day when you have your biggest gain on your heaviest volume, that can be a launch pad. that's what's happening with facebook right now. do you like it versus google? how do you stand? >> i still like google relatively speaking versus facebook. if you look at the recent chart patterns, you can see why it might be a better risk reward. google over the last few years has had a big breakout. it's down to a level that should be a decent risk reward area to buy. if you see all these former highs over the last couple years, google's pulled back about 50% to this level of support. that makes it interesting versus a stock like facebook, which has been in a gradual bottoming
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process and could be a game changer for the stock. however, it's up 20% as of today, right near former highs from september. so in general, it's tough to reach for the stock here. it definitely makes it on the radar now for me in terms of watching for pullbacks over the next few weeks. as the stock gradually starts to bottom out, but you don't want to reach for stocks that are up 20% after breaking out near former highs. it's a quick way to go from the 1% back to the 47%. >> they are going to have to fill that gap. >> if it gets under $21, it would be a lot more attractive for me. for now, google has a proven technical structure and looks to be a better risk reward, at least in the near term. >> there you go. lou, mark, thank you for joining us today. >> 30 minutes before the closing bell sounds for the day. a market down about 20 points. up next, drug pipeline problem. eli lily bracing for a loss of patents. does it have new money making
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shares of eli lilly trading lower today. down 2.5% right now. the pharmaceutical company reporting a 7% increase in profit but as we've heard from so many companies lately, revenue came in light. they were down 11% for lilly. but with one big drug having lost patent protection, can lilly count on their experimental alzheimer's drug and other drugs in the pipeline to fill the sales void? >> joining us now is the chairman and ceo of eli lilly. welcome back to cnbc. great to see you. >> thanks, maria. it's great to see you. we have a lot of exciting stuff going on. >> let's talk about that. i guess the earnings story is certainly what investors are focused on right now. you have talked about currency being an issue and the removal of your insulin business from
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cvs caremark as one of the reasons for the shortfall bill was just talking about. is there anything else that played as big a role there? we're trying to get a sense of what's going on for the corporate sector right now. >> insulin sales were a little soft this quarter in the u.s. that's primarily because of this loss you referred to. however, we saw products like cymbalta growing. in japan, we suffered a price hit earlier this year when they reduced prices in japan. our volume growth, though, in japan for the quarter was 15%. our animal health business p slowed a bit. it's been on a real tear in recent quarters. 6% growth in the third quarter. again, currency hurt that a bit. it was 10% of volume growth, which is not too bad. >> you know, drugs going off patent is not a new story. you guys and your major competitors have been dealing with this for years now.
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it's your all-time best seller. sales in the third quarter down 68%. that's big. i mean, were you expecting that big of a sales decline for that drug? >> anymore when products lose patents, particularly small molecul molecules, the u.s. system is very efficient to converting those prescriptions over to generics. so i would say, bill, yes. that's very much within our planning horizon. now, the fact that our overall sales went down only 11% i think gives you some indication of the good growth we got from our other products. >> so what's in the pipeline to replace the lost revenue from the drugs going off patent then, john? talk to us about the stronger candidates in the pipeline and where you might want to expand knowing these patents are going off, are expiring. >> well, maria, we knew several years ago we were going to experience a period going
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through 2014 where we're going to be negatively impacted by a series of patent expirations. at that time, we made a significant commitment to continue investing in rnd to build up our phase three pipeline so as we come out of the period we can begin to launch new products. today we have 12 molecules in phase three. most recently a potential heart medicine called the cetp inhibitor. we just started phase three. we anticipate a 13th molecule going into phase three. this would be an oral medicine to treat rheumatoid arthritis later this quarter. we think we're well stocked. we think we're well positioned to see this strategy play out. >> would it be more efficient, though, to buy a new product rather than try to develop it internally, which can take a long time? >> we certainly look outside for such opportunities,
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particularly, bill, if they can help us generate revenue in this patent loss period. recall we bought imclone a few years ago. we also had some good data a couple weeks ago on one of the experimental drugs in gastric cancer. so you know -- >> anything on the horizon right now? >> pardon? >> anything on the horizon right now, acquisition-wise? >> right now i'd say we're more focused on our internal pipeline of that 13, b those 13 molecules i talked about. we own 11 of them outright. i think that bodes well for lilly shareholders in the future. >> john, real quick, on the implications of health care legislation. give us your sense of how things change if governor romney wins this presidential election and moves to repeal the health care legislation versus the president getting re-elected. how does that impact lilly?
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>> maria, it's very difficult to say. obviously the direct impact of the health care reform legislation of the aca is the fact that we're paying a lot of money to help seniors bridge the medicare gap. we're giving higher medicaid rebat rebates. we're paying an annual fee. there's some benefits we get as well. the extended period of protection for bilogics, for example. we said all along while the industry supported the aca, there are several aspects of that law we have strong disagreement with and would hope to see repeal. >> all right. we'll leave it there. john, good to have you on the program. thanks so much. >> thank you. >> heading toward the close, down 21 points here with about 25 minutes to go. we've been hearing that the bias at the close is to the sell side. >> we'll see about that. the recent selloff is not crushing the confidence of our next guest. find out why he's one key investor and still bullish on this market. plus, meredith whitney says
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despite the recent declines, the bull market is still intact. he's smiling too. >> rich joins us right now along with anthony chan from chase wealth management. talk to us about your feeling here. you think this market strengthens? >> i think we're in a major bull market. i've thought that for a while. obviously with the election, post-election, fiscal cliff, arguing in washington, i think we could have a period of volatility. for anybody who has a timeline longer than weeks, we should still be in a bull market. >> you heard the fed today. what were the headlines that stood out? >> i was really impressed with them telling us ho household spending is picking up. i realize everybody is going to harp on the fact that business investment is slowing down. business investment is going to take its cues from demand. if households are spending more, investment will pick up. then guess what happens? unemployment starts picking up. all the seeds are in place for a much better environment. i agree with richard.
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>> what a difference a day makes. yesterday we had two equally smart guys sitting where you guys are who are making a very different case for the economy and the markets. they were talking about the very same things you are. the fiscal cliff. the economic slowdown. not just here but overseas, in europe and asia as well. for them, those are things you cannot ignore. >> i'm not saying you ignore them. look, one has to come to the realization that although the united states is getting better at a sub-par rate, this is not a normal recovery, the key thing is we are recovering. find me another economy in the world that has gotten better in the last 12 months. >> but are you starting to see a different slowdown right now? the third quarter earnings, we keep hearing the same thing from big companies. a slowdown that started in the fall here and revenues come in light almost uniformly. >> that's right. my whole argument is the rest of the world is much sicker than want united states. the more exposure you have to the rest of the world, the more likely it is you're going to run into trouble. look at the companies having
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trouble. they're all having trouble because they're overseas operations. the profit cycle is already starting to turn up. >> do you worry this market has been trading so much on central bank easing and when we actually do look at the focus on fundamentals it trades down? that, in fact, the broad, you know, backdrop is actually quite anemic? >> let's face it, the central banks are, in fact, the only game in town, so markets are going to pay attention to that. to richard's point, when you look at guidance out there, close to 90% of the companies offering guidance, it's negative guidance. in fact, that's setting us up for potential surprises on the upside. if so many companies are telling you that the guidance is really bad, that bar is being set very low. even a small positive surprise can be positive for the market. >> just a wild guess, i'm guessing you're buying consumer related stocks then? >> i think eventually consumer spending is going to start picking up. i think that right now even though technology has not been doing well, when you see and
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expect that companies are going to be growing profits at 5% to 7% but the economy is only growing at 2%, you're going to need some technology. when you see consumers getting somewhat excited about gadgets, that means some technology. when you see the housing recovery, that means housing related stocks are exciting. >> i would agree. we've seen some of the early cycle stocks do well. you've seen housing stocks on fire. retailers haven't done badly. autos haven't done badly. we're looking more at mid-cycle stocks, more the investment cycle. i think domestic u.s. investment related stocks are actually quite attractive here and dramatically underowned. >> fiscal cliff though? >> fiscal cliff is a big issue. >> by the way, the impact is will have on the tax treatment of the stock market. >> if you want to get nervous near a dividend player because everybody's been investing in dividends, think about what happens to the highest tax bracket and what the dividend goes up. 43.5%.
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>> from 15%. that's got to be a disruption. >> what happens is if the capital gains tax rate stays at 20, it now becomes more efficient to sell 5% of your portfolio than to take a 5% dividend yield. you could get dislocations as people look at advantages and disadvantages of the taxes. >> there's no question that if everything expires and the fiscal cliff comes in full force, we'll go into a recession. it's not in the interest of any political party, no matter which party you sit in, to let that happen. we can't afford that. >> are you overestimating congress at this point? >> i'm just thinking they're rational individual, or at least i like to believe that. >> i can't believe we're here. >> i'm hoping they see the urgency. >> if you want to worry, worry that perhaps congress starts setting up for the 2014 mid-term elections. if the president gets reelected,
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the next game will be the mid-term elections. we'll start worrying about that. >> thanks, guys. really appreciate it. well, it looks like that imbalance on the south side was the right call, bill. we have a market that has worsened in the last few minutes. >> yesterday you heard former goldman sachs vice president greg smith blast his former firm right here on "closing bell." >> i actually think goldman just wanted to say, or any other firm, you know what, we're no longer in the business of serving clients' interests. we're now in the business of serving purely our own interests. >> now goldman's ceo has his say here on cnbc. hear what he has to say coming up next. then warren buffett is buying shares of wells fargo, but is that a bank meredith whitney likes right now? she joins us exclusively to talk about the banking sector. a crash management system and the world's only tridion safety cell which can withstand over three and a half tons.
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goldman sachs firing back today against former employee greg smith who wrote that scathing on-ed piece in "the new
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york times" piece last spring. then it became a book that was released this week. >> yesterday i spoke with greg smith here on this program. of course, was less than complimentary about his former employer. today on cnbc, goldman ceo lloyd blankfein reacted to the book publicly for the first time. >> we checked on everything exhaustively. we didn't find anything. frankly, when the book came out, i think a lot of people reviewed the book couldn't find anything. as a result of all this, we did a tremendous deep dive yet again. we investigated and turned over everything. in the end of the day with all the stress, and i wouldn't want to go through that again, we're probably going to be a better firm for it anyway. >> ironically, it may have a h an impact on the company then. i agree with those who say greg smith may lack some credibility for not voicing his concerns while he was at goldman. he was there ten years, for pete's sake. >> 12 years.
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>> okay. most of that time over in london. but there are mechanisms in place in major corporations where you can voice concerns anonymously, either through an ombudsman or hr department. >> how come he decided the kool-aid wasn't good anymore after 12 years, making $500,000 at the top? look, i think this was positive in that it brought lloyd blankfein out to talk about this. there is a discussion to be had. why has the retail investor left the party? why doesn't anyone trust wall street? these are issues that we should be having a conversation about. i'm so happy that blankfein came on cnbc today to talk about it. this is exactly what he should be doing. >> i know you'll be talking about this in your observation. >> that's right. >> look forward to that. up next, the closing countdown. also, after the bell, he made a killing shorting facebook. >> he shorted it 42. >> is dan niles starting to rethink that position? >> i think he might be covering.
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find out later on the "closing bell." several big banks beating wall street expectations. meanwhile, will banks lead the market back? stay with us. [ male announcer ] it's simple physics... a body at rest tends to stay at rest... while a body in motion tends to stay in motion. staying active can actually ease arthritis symptoms. but if you have arthritis, staying active can be difficult. prescription celebrex can help relieve arthritis pain so your body can stay in motion. because just one 200mg celebrex a day
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welcome back. four minutes left in the trading session. i always like to see on fed day when the announcement comes out what the market response is. look at this. >> so dramatic. >> here's the announcement right there. a little selloff and then a stutter step higher and then a real selloff. in fact, we're about the lows of the day for the dow industrial average, down about 28 points here just off that low. the best performer today was united technologies with a gain of 1%. earnings related. cisco down 3% today, also earnings related. >> well, technology is definitely still showing a slowdown. we know that. we have to remember that a big portion of revenue and tech comes from europe. so that's also an issue for this sector. >> rich bernstein, you take that to heart? >> absolutely, maria. technology is the most exposed sector. always has been.
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we've had a dollar that's been reasonably strong year on year. we have got europe and asia slowing down. that's not real good for tech. you're absolutely right. >> mike shay, your firm is ringing the closing bell today. we welcome you back to the floor. >> thanks. >> do you make of this market that suddenly has gotten fundamental religion and is trading on fundamentals when it ignored them for so long? >> there are a lot of people that would say it's about time. i would have to agree with them. the thing is, though, and we talk about europe a lot. we have european clients. every one of them coming to our capital group, they say all the time, find us u.s. assets. even though things might be ugly here, ugly there, this is still not a bad house if you want to be moving into the neighborhood. >> that's a great point. that's what we're seeing in real estate as well. foreign money coming into new york, the big cities in the u.s. that certainly has helped housing a bit. we'll see if that stabilizes. at this point, what's next for the catalyst for this market?
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now we're on election countdown? is it something else? >> it could be. it's hard to say what the market's anticipating. i would say as we go through the first quarter and if earnings actually begin to bottom out and show some signs of life, i think that could be your big catalyst. >> i know you're going to talk to meredith whitney coming up about her view of the banks. the reports we've gotten so far is these low rates are starting to take a toll on the bottom line for these companies because their margins are being squeezed by these low rates. >> which is a little bit stunning to me because if you're getting money at this much and you could loan it at this much, what's going on? where is that disconnect? the fact is, they're not loaning the money. >> right. i think part of the problem is they can't use the leverage they used to. the banks used to be very highly levered. they were basically big hedge funds. that's going away. it's a question of how much of their margin pressure is coming from lower interest rates and how much is coming from less leverage. >> this is a really important point you bring up. we know we've got a slow down in tech. we've got issues with the banks.
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where does the growth come from then? you're both saying u.s., u.s., u.s. what sector delivers the growth? >> while they're answering, you better get ready for the "closing bell." >> bye, guys. >> what about that? >> well, i would say there's a couple things. small banks in the united states, unlike the big guys who are really still trying to do commodity swaps in batswana, i think the small guys are just basic lenders. i think their businesses are improving. i think domestic industrial companies are starting to it gain market share. prices are coming down again. demand is slowing. prices are finally moving lower. >> but that doesn't necessarily mean you want to actually invest in energy. i mean, it's good for all of us. this is the direct access we're talking about. >> i know you're here with your team. good to see you guys. thanks for joining us today. down 21 points. not exactly the bounce bulls might have expected after ye

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